OHCT Trustee Malcolm Airs reviews this delightful book
The author describes it as ‘the work of amateur enthusiasm and passion, a glimpse into the endless fascinations afforded to me by England’s churches and the landscape they sit within’ and the reader is carried away with his excitement at the rich array of treasures that he reveals over a lifetime of church visiting. It is a very personal selection of his favourite churches from Cumbria to Cornwall focussing on specific features in each one rather than giving a dry account of their overall architectural significance.
Each chapter is prefaced by a brief introduction to the themes that are covered by his selection of churches ranging from the beginnings of his obsession in Derbyshire where he was brought up through the roughly chronological phases of the course of Christianity in England with lyrical reflections on the atmosphere that he encountered at the time of his first visit and autobiographical snippets on the journeys that he took to find them. There are four entries for Oxfordshire and they each illustrate his approach. So, at Burford it is the scratched graffiti on the font that leads him to describe the fate of the Levellers that were imprisoned within during the Civil War in a chapter called A Tumultuous Land: The Ruptures of History Writ in Stone, Wood and Metal, although he does briefly acknowledge that the beauty of its architecture makes it well worth a visit for other reasons. At Ewelme in his chapter on The Connoisseur: Searching for Treasures Within English Churches, it is Alice Chaucer’s beautiful tomb in St John the Baptist’s chapel that he describes as one of the finest late Gothic funerary monuments in the country whereas at Iffley it is its essential Norman character that appeals to him although he draws attention to the brilliance of John Piper’s stained glass nativity window. At Little Faringdon where he found ‘a somewhat gloomy feel to the interior’ due to the simple lancet windows in the north aisle, it is the stiff-leaf capitals in the nave which capture his imagination.
There are evocative chapters on atmospheric churches (The Place of Whispering Memories) and those that inspire calm in a chaotic world (Journeys of Contemplation). It concludes with a final chapter of his thoughts on the future of the church and a plea for an enlightened government to improve the funding and to recognise the important national collection that our churches represent. His enthusiastic prose is infectious and its is complemented by the extraordinarily beautiful black and white illustrations by Ioana Pioaru which adorn almost every page. It is a true collaboration of author and artist and she deserves great praise for capturing the essence of the book as do the publishers for the quality of the design and the very reasonable price.
Forgotten Churches: Exploring Englands’s Hidden Treasures, by Luke Sherlock with illustrations by Ioana Pioaru, (Frances Lincoln) March 2025 176 pages, hardback, ISBN 978-0-7112-9410-3, £15.99.
